Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The national planning framework builds on the historic and internationally significant national spatial strategy that Fine Gael scrapped under their short-term approach in 2012. Now, accompanied by a new flashy website and jargon-driven Government spin, the national planning framework is being launched with more ministerial photos and introductory paragraphs than I can remember reading in a Government publication. I will try now to see through the management speak, however, and give an outline as to why, although I welcome the change in Fine GaeI’s attitude to national planning, I have reservations that this framework is essentially a plan about plans.

The national planning framework as currently constructed is deeply flawed and indeed reflective of the Government's centralising instinct that is counter-productive in achieving balanced regional development and in ensuring that all of our people are consulted and involved in this plan from draft to publication to implementation to monitoring and then to review. What should be our plan should not be turned into Leo’s plan or Fine Gael's plan. The principle behind this planning framework should be the centrality of all of our people contributing to the plan. Instead we have an “everybody’s a winner” mantra which is vague and full of mum and apple pie aspirations that could, if left unaddressed, further erode the confidence of the public in the political system to address difficult issues with honesty, inclusivity and courage.

To anyone reading this draft plan in full, as I have, the Ireland of 2040 will be something approaching heaven. All of our developmental, planning and infrastructural problems will apparently be magically resolved without any specifics, timelines or any budgets. We need to get real here. This plan needs to be honest. As it currently stands, it has more in common with the utopian manifestoes of Trump and Tory-style politics. This constant spin is doing so much damage to politics. A national planning framework can be credible and ambitious. The spatial strategy it succeeds was an honest start. This plan seems to me to be more about the next election cycle then about the next 23 years. The new aligned capital plan which is being shrouded in secrecy is the reality of what the Government means behind the cotton candy of this draft plan. The people and the media should not be dazzled by the draft national planning framework but should rightly analyse how the capital plan, both in its formulation and its contents, aligns with the framework. No one outside Government, however, has seen the detail of the aligned capital plan or has been consulted about it, proving that we have cause for concern about the sincerity of the spin. If there is no sincere and robust consultation by Members of the Dáil In the new capital plan, then how can our regional and local authorities and the wider public have any faith that their views will be listened to?

Unless all our people are consulted about the capital plan and can see within it the projects that are needed, this national planning framework is just a smoke screen for continued centralised governance and urban sprawl on the east coast while rural Ireland and our regional towns and villages continue to decline and disappear. A key requirement for this plan to be credible is the need to spell out specific infrastructural needs and intentions. If we are to achieve an adequate transport system In the greater Dublin region, including commuter counties such as Wicklow, we need key commitments and projects to be spelled out here. I will refer to my own county of Wicklow as an example of how key capital plan and planning framework needs are being ignored with ambiguous promises and no concrete proposals or workable timelines. There is no mention in this planning framework of the need for a substantial upgrade of N11-M11, a key feeder road into Dublin that is currently gridlocked every day of the week. There is no mention in this planning framework of the Luas extension to Bray which would provide major relief to our transport chaos and help balance development with regard to the Dublin metropolitan region. There is no mention of the improvements to the existing rail and DART network to tackle the sardines in a can experience to which rail users from Wicklow town and Arklow can testify. There is no mention of port towns such as Arklow and Wicklow, only vague ideas around tier one and tier two port towns. With regard to the wastewater scandal that is plaguing Arklow and so many other towns and villages, no specific tasks or projects are mentioned other than that the national issue of wastewater is now a key short-term priority. After 25 years, I’m sure the people of Arklow will be delighted to hear that.

With regard to housing, the plan states that we need over half a million more homes by 2040 but gives no concrete proposals as to how to get there. It would almost be funny if it were not such a serious crisis. It is in the area of one-off rural housing, however, that I have serious concerns about the hidden time bomb contained the current draft of the national planning framework. We are all aware of the need for local people to be able to live in rural Ireland and of the difficulties that far too many rural Irish people face when they seek to build a family home in their own locality. This plan’s attempt to address rural housing states the intention to recognise those who have an economic interest In living in rural Ireland. This does nothing to resolve the difficulty that many face when trying to build a family home in rural Ireland. Has the Minister informed the people of rural Ireland what he means by an economic need to live in the countryside? Has he explained the definition of having a functional economic requirement for housing? He has not explained in any of the public information sessions to date what he means by economic need because he is only too aware of its implications on the rural way of life. If this economic need is adopted, it will be another nail in the coffin of rural Ireland, this time in the form of death by policy.

Let us be honest with the people and explain to them exactly what are the implications. I will give the House three examples. Let us take an individual from a family that has lived in rural Wicklow for four generations. This person gets a job in a factory about eight miles from his family home. He no longer qualifies for one-off rural housing because he no longer has an economic need to live on his own land. Let us imagine as a second example a farmer with three children. One of them takes over the farm activities and qualifies to build a home because he has an economic need.

My other two children, however, can no longer live on the family farm because they have no economic need, they only have a social need. My third example is that if I fly in from another country with no connections to Ireland whatsoever, but I am going to get involved in the agriculture business and do some farming, I would now qualify because I have economic need. This cannot be based on economic need only but on social need as well.

For years I have heard from Department officials and planners that the country cannot sustain rural housing in the future. While I share some of that sentiment, the same officials and planners have yet to address it and come up with credible alternatives. What the planners in every county excel in, however, is devising ways to refuse planning for families living in rural Ireland. This plan, and policy objective 18b with its focus on economic need, must be changed before it is adopted. Otherwise, within a very short period of time of this plan being adopted, that economic need will be part of the core strategy of every county development plan in the country. This will have a devastating effect on rural Ireland. It is already hard enough to get planning in these areas. We need to get serious about helping people who live in rural Ireland, both in rural areas and in rural towns and villages.

All of these glossy documents and all of this spin are just a smokescreen to disguise the approach of doing as little as possible which the Fine Gael and Independent Alliance Government has adopted. We need a planning framework and a capital plan that all Irish people can have ownership of and confidence in. We do not need a planning framework which is a smokescreen for a capital plan which serves the interests of a centralised Government in getting re-elected. Currently the national planning framework is a placebo plan, which gives the psychological impression of treatment while containing nothing of substance.

We in Fianna Fáil are prepared to work with the Government to ensure that Ireland's national planning framework and our new capital plan reflect the title it has used - Ireland 2040 Our Plan. We need all the people to have an input into the capital plan. The public participation networks, the local action groups, elected councillors, local authorities and every public body with an interest should be involved. If “our plan” is not to be regarded as fake news this needs to happen. At the moment all I can see is the Government's plan. I wait to see if our ideas will be taken on board.

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